This is one in a series of profiles of candidates in this year's city elections.

NEW BEDFORD — The intersection of Routes 6 and 140 was louder than usual Monday evening. For every 10 cars that passed, it seemed, one driver would start honking repeatedly, then wave in support of Ward 5 candidate Jan Baptist and her 10-plus supporters standing at the intersection wearing T-shirts and holding signs.

"We almost wore buttons but then I thought it'd be overkill," Baptist said.

Baptist was standing on the sidewalk by One Stop Gas, waving to even the cars that did not honk.

This was one of her campaign's first "visibility" efforts; most of her time has been spent canvassing and handing out the 5,000 pamphlets she printed.

Baptist said she sees herself as the natural successor to current Councilor Jane Gonsalves.

"We're going to be at a loss without her and that's sad," Baptist said. "But I'm looking forward to serving the citizens and my neighbors and having an impact on the city as a whole."

Her 30-year career at Bristol Community College has prepared her for the role of being a city councilor, Baptist said. She most recently was the school's director of disability services where she worked to "provide services to students on a budget and within legal parameters."

"That's the framework I'm coming from and that's the framework of the City Council," she said.

One specific area where she would apply this technique is in education, where she said leadership has to act in support of teachers.

"It's not that leadership is the managers," she said. "They need to say, 'I'm here, what can I do to support you and help you do your job' to the teachers. The teachers are on the front lines."

One of her supporters, Cynthia Rose, said Baptist's background will "certainly" translate to the council.

"Whether she has the answer you want to hear or the one you don't want to hear, she always gets back to you," Rose said. "I really believe she will tend to the needs of the community and do the best job she can."

For Baptist, that means looking at problems and not just finding "yes or no" answers, but finding solutions. As an example she used the issue of demolishing old homes that have fallen in disrepair.

"It's not a question of if you want to knock them down or not," she said.

"It's a question of if you can fix it up. I know plenty of people who bought old houses in this ward that were wrecks and now they are beautiful and give people a sense of ownership and pride."

She described Ward 5 as one where people aspire to live, and said that as a councilor she would work to keep it that way.

Baptist, who grew up in the North End, said she had never been to the Buttonwood Park neighborhood until high school, when she made a friend who lived on Rotch Street.

"From then on I secretly always wanted to live here," she said. "And now I just have to laugh about it because I made it. I made it to the West End."